


love is what you make of life

by writedeku



Category: Yuri!!! on Ice (Anime)
Genre: Acceptance, Angst with a Happy Ending, Canon Compliant, Fluff, Light Angst, Love Confessions, Loving Oneself, M/M, Understandings, victor is whipped, yuuri is insecure and trying his best
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-08
Updated: 2017-11-08
Packaged: 2019-01-31 00:43:57
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,093
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12664815
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/writedeku/pseuds/writedeku
Summary: People far more beautiful than Yuuri take to the ice and they thaw it out, they melt the heart of the audience and they take it in their arms with the confidence one can only define as outworldly. All he has ever been able to do is hold their heart in his shaking palm for one or two seconds, however long his step sequence lasts, then hastily pass it back to others.He is not born for holding their hearts. He is a medium in which they pass through him.Victor Nikiforov, on the other hand, is made for just that.





	love is what you make of life

**Author's Note:**

> man i wrote this so long ago and just sat on it

Katsuki Yuuri would tell anyone who listened to him that he  _ hates  _ himself. It’s not even meant to be a joke anymore, something borne out of years of growing up around more beautiful people, but he means it with every fibre of his being. It is a bad thing for a figure skater to hate themselves. Every aspect of the sport requires one to not only believe in themselves but love themselves, presenting a front of utmost attraction and grace on the ice. It is why he is never a good competitive figure skater. 

People far more beautiful than him take to the ice and they thaw it out, they melt the heart of the audience and they take it in their arms with the confidence one can only define as outworldly. All Yuuri has ever been able to do is hold their heart in his shaking palm for one or two seconds, however long his step sequence lasts, and hastily pass it back to others. 

He is not born for holding their hearts. He is a medium in which they pass through him. 

Victor Nikiforov, on the other hand, is made for just that. He’s got so many hearts on his hands they pile up on his shoulders, the burden of being expected to win like the weight of the world, but he takes it all on the slant of his elegant shoulders and the quirk of his beautiful smile and he stands there, in front of the harsh, brilliant lighting, a marble statue for everyone to gawk at. The world’s most beautiful man, like a faerie from a dream, framed by roses and a gold, gold glint on his chest. Always on top, Victor Nikiforov was. Always on the top.

Yuuri watches all this from the side of the stage, the side of the ice, the side of the world, his hands aching and shaking, his vision blurring. His marble statue he’d loved since forever was right there in front of him, but his eyes were dead and his soul was cold. He smiled, and they took pictures and he kissed his gold, but all Yuuri could think of was that this is not how it was supposed to go. Victor was supposed to notice him. Victor was supposed to look at him and think- think- think something wonderful. Yuuri skated for  _ him _ , he always skated for him, he never stopped skating for Victor not a day in his life. 

But Yuuri had failed. 

And he hated himself.

* * *

 

He’s on a pole and he’s going round, and round, and he’s surprisingly good at it. His thighs hold the pole as Chris whirls about on top, grinning and laughing. “You’ve got moves, boy wonder,” he says, his Swiss accent thick on his tongue, squishing his vowels. “ _ Ja,  _ Yuuri,  _ schnell, schnell schnell!” _

He goes faster, the room whizzes by. He feels so free, he feels like he’s flying. Then his eyes land on a bemused Victor, who looks at the two of them in awe. “Chris, stop egging him on,” he says, and his accent too is getting thicker by the word. “Yuuri, is it?”

Yuuri stops spinning to stare at him. His beautiful marble statue. 

“Victor,” Yuuri lands gracefully off the pole and unbuttons yet another button, so that his shirt is barely hanging off him. He’s not trying to be erotic now, but he’s very, very hot. He stumbles a little on his way to him, but he arrives there eventually, his eyes wide and a smile curling its way onto his face. “You should dance with us,  _ watashi no zō _ ,” he laughs. “Chris would be happy, wouldn’t you?”

“ _ Schatzli, _ ” Chris says with a flourish. He leans on Yuuri’s shoulder and grins seductively at the Russian. “Let loose a little.”

“I have a reputation,” Victor laughs. “You don’t.”

Chris tugs on his coat and pulls it off, but Yuuri is there first. Brain clogged and foggy with the haze of dozens upon dozens of flutes of champagne, he hangs onto his idol’s hands with the drooping squeeze of someone losing control of their extremities. He frowns at his hands, because they aren’t registering touch. Victor stares at him. 

Yuuri throws his arms around Victor instead, winding his hands up into his hair, his eyes fluttering shut. “Vikutoru,” he says, softly, his breath ghosting over the bared skin. His Japanese accent is, like all the others’ getting painfully obvious. Victor strains against him. “If I win this dance-off, you’ll be my coach, okay?”

Victor pushes him back, but holds onto his shoulders, looking at him through a haze of confusion. “Wha-”

“I said, if I win, you come be my coach, okay?” Yuuri looks at him seriously. “You promise!”

Victor has seen many beautiful things in his life. He’s seen figure skaters take the ice by storm, a greedy hand on their gold jewel, but always stopped short by his amused smile. He’s seen oceans and churches towering high into the sky, so beautiful they eclipse even the sun. He’s had women beneath him, models and actresses and skaters alike, more than physically attractive, and he’s had men, the hard lines of muscle against him, fluid movements of appeal. He’s seen sunsets and sunrises, he’s seen his hair in the moonlight as he twists and turns, he’s seen trees grow from nothing and fruits bear from nowhere.

But he’s never seen a sight as desirable as the innocent Japanese man before him, his eyes commanding, his attention unwavering. Victor cannot take his eyes off him. It is not to say that this man is the most beautiful man he’s ever seen. Chris, with his meadow-green eyes and his windswept blonde hair takes a higher position. The man he’d had two weeks ago, with his strong jaw and broad shoulders could also snatch it away. But Katsuki Yuuri was- something else all together. In this moment, as the red flush on his face threatens to overwhelm him, and the feel of his hard body against his, Victor suddenly realised he might be ruined for other men.

“Yes,” Victor says. He knows the man will forget in the morning, but right now he says  _ yes, yes to anything you want tonight _ , because he wants to see the grin light up his face, the sparkle in his eyes, the way he turns to the angry blond by his side and says, “Okay! I’ll fight you!”

“Me?” The Russian Yuri points in disbelief at himself. 

“Yea. Can you breakdance?”

“What?!”

Yuri was humiliated at the dance-off. Yuuri did not just move like he did on skates, graceful and charming, but he had added a completely new element to his story, one that spoke tales of sexual misdeeds in the dark of night. Watching the way Yuuri now grinded on air, eyes fixated on Victor’s, he could feel himself getting hard in his pants and he had to desperately shove it down, his hands moving to button his coat. 

He left early that night, armed with an arsenal of photographs and videos. The one of Yuuri and Chris pole dancing half-naked would go into his bank for sure. The rest, all embarrasing photos of Yuuri getting progressively debauched made him feel all tingly inside.

But the skater’s presence for the next six months diminishes and diminishes, until Katsuki Yuuri is just the Japanese legend who made it to the GP Finals once, a man he almost knew, but never did. He’s slowly forgetting about the man, forgetting what made him so enthralling, and is this close to deleting the pictures off his phone when he is scrolling through twitter and he sees a link.

“This Japanese skater tried to copy Victor Nikiforov’s routine…and you won’t believe what happens next!”

It’s blatant clickbait, but the only Japanese skater he knows who looks up to him like that is the enigma of a man of which only the vaguest memories were saved onto his phone. He clicks the link.

The man is by no means perfect, but by god is he beautiful. Yuuri tells a story of a lost man who wanders again and again through time and space, never finding what he wants. There’s a moment, right when the second half begins, that Yuuri seems to realise something within him, and he stretches out his hands to take it- and then it’s gone, just like that, his eyes drooping and leaden, his movements wooden and harsh. It’s a completely different story than the one Victor told. It is not at all less beautiful for it. 

It is watching the way he loves so freely, loves the piece and the choreography and the ice- it sucks Victor in like a black hole Suddenly, he realises that he is…he is very, very lonely. He is tired, he realises, of buying stuff for one. One dish. One plate. His fancy apartment has two sets of cutlery for when Yakov visits him sometimes. There are no dishes in the sink. Everything is as it is, pristine, beautiful, not a single thing out of place. This apartment has not been lived in, his skates have. 

Victor wants to take them off. 

Before he can fully comprehend what he’s doing, he’s booking a ticket to Hasetsu and packing his bags.Victor is confident in his abilities as an artist, and as he stuffs a t-shirt into his luggage, he knows without a shadow of a doubt that Yuuri is his brush with which he’d redefine the world.

* * *

“Victor,” Yuuri starts, uncomfortably. He fidgets on the sand wall they sit on. “I’ve never spoken to you before you came to Hasetsu. I didn’t know who you were off the ice,” he stares at the sea, ever changing, ever peaceful. “I just knew on the ice, you were unparalleled,” he laughs awkwardly. The silence clenches at his heart. “So…why’re you pretending now?”

“Pretending?” Victor asks, astonished. “I’m not pretending. I’m here to be your coach.”

“I understand that part,” Yuuri looks at him as if he’s a puzzle he’s trying to solve. “I don’t understand you.”

Victor stares at him in confusion. 

“I don’t want you to be a lover, or a friend, a brother nor a father,” the man next to him tilts his head back. His pale skin catches the sun. “I want you to be Victor. No more lies. No more masks. When I saw you on the podium at the Grand Prix,” Yuuri looks at him seriously. “You were a statue. You smiled but you weren’t there. Where were you? How can someone win a gold and still look like they’ve won nothing at all? How  _ dare  _ you?”

Victor is stunned. His little  _ katsudon  _ is getting spicy. “Winning was repetitive,” Victor says. “I play a part for the media, I play a part for the fans, I play a part for the ice, I play a part for the medal. You tell me, no masks, I say, I do not know who I am without them. I was in  _ toska _ , dear Yuuri. A deep regret of the soul for what I do not know,” his English gets hasty. He trips over his sentences. 

“I have posters of you,” Yuuri tells him in a flash of honesty. “They used to be on my walls. I’d watch you every time you performed. Tell me, have I ever seen you smile?”

Victor smiles for him. It’s a painful one that hurts both of them. 

“Liar,” Yuuri turns away from him. “I’ve never seen you smile, have I?”

He fidgets uncomfortably. The cry of the gulls calls his heart to him. He reaches out, grasping at thin threads of feelings that coil around his throat. “I don’t know.”

“I’ll help you,” Yuuri says with the utmost conviction, a shine to his eyes. “Whatever it is that keeps you a statue, I’ll help you smash it. But you have to promise me. That’d you’d try to be Victor, not skating Victor, or fan Victor. Just  _ my  _ Victor.”

How does he tell this boy he saved him the night he’d pulled him into a dance and said, “Victor, you should smile more.”? Victor cannot convey the debt he owes this man with a big heart and bigger dreams. 

“Very well,” Victor bows his head. “I will be Victor Nikiforov for you as best as I can, yes? I will find myself in skating for you.”

“Not  _ for  _ me,  _ with  _ me,” Yuuri corrects gently. “You are my coach, and on the ice we skate together.”

Victor smiles fondly at his student, his beautiful, beautiful student. He would make a good coach, one day.

* * *

“Yuuri,” Victor flops onto the bed that Yuuri is sleeping in, rolling about and whining. “Wake up.”

“It’s Sunday,” Yuuri groans and pushes him off the bed. Victor has fast enough reflexes to twist and grab onto the covers, so that only his legs hit the floor. “We don’t train in the mornings on Sunday.”

“It’s not training,” Victor says seriously, but then a goofy grin breaks out over his face and he laughs. He cannot believe that he is here, lying on top of one of the most desirable men in the world, and said man is wearing a ratty  _ get high get skates  _ t-shirt that’s obviously been used well, and long ugly plaid bottoms. “Let’s decide on your look for the season.”

“My look?” Yuuri is not fully awake. His eyes droop and absentmindedly he runs a finger through Victor’s silver-grey hair that slips smoothly through his hands. Victor’s eyes flutter shut. “I was going to go with it slicked back as always.”

“Let me see,” Victor takes Yuuri’s hand and makes him pet him in earnest. Then he drops it as he rolls over to look up at him excitedly. “I’m going to make sure your eros is in full force when you perform!”

“What does that mean?” Yuuri stretches and tries to swing his legs out of the bed, but is locked in by Victor’s weight.

“It means we’re doing more squats from now on,” Victor winks, and Yuuri smacks him lightly on the head.

* * *

“So you’re still wearing my black costume from the onsen event?” Victor asks as Yuuri knocks about in the bathroom. He hadn’t really paid much attention to it when Yuuri had been performing, solely focusing on Yuuri’s facial expressions, watching the way he tried to seduce the crowd. It had worked well, but now Victor wants to concentrate on his body movements, that is to say, during scenes where he dragged his hands across his face, he wanted the rest of the body to move too.

“Yes,” Yuuri opens the door to his mouth full of toothpaste. “You going to keep asking me questions through the door?”

“Hai,” Victor smiles goofily at him. His Japanese sounds a little more authentic than it did before, because back when Victor first came, if he said even  _ hai,  _ he sounded awful. “Can you wear it for me now?”

“Fine,” Yuuri turns back to the basin, spitting out the toothpaste and rinsing his mouth. “I can’t believe I actually fit it, though. Am I that small?”

“You’re small,” Victor confirms it by wrapping his arms around Yuuri’s waist and rubbing his face up and down his back. “See? I could cover you in an instant,  _ malen'kiy katsudon _ .”

“You just used three languages in the same sentence. That’s overkill,” Yuuri snarks at him, and tugs off his shirt. Victor is suddenly whacked- sucker-punched, more like, in the gut with the sight of beautiful, lithe, muscular Yuuri. He stares. One heartbeat, two heartbeats, and then, “I know I’m still a little soft in the stomach, Victor, but you don’t need to gawk.”

“More sit-ups,” Victor replies, sounding slightly strangled. “Crunches.”

“I know,” Yuuri makes a face. It's easier to lie a little here and say that's the reason he was staring, not the fact that he wanted to bang him, y’know. He strips off his pants, and Victor combusts, turning away from the younger man to stare pointedly at the wall. There's the sound of fabric rustling and struggling, and Victor turns around to help Yuuri into his old costume. 

In the yellow light of the bathroom, Yuuri looks gorgeous. Absolutely show-stopping, even with his glasses still on, and his hair all over the place. He wiggles around in it, checks his butt out in the mirror, and then opens his bathroom cupboard. 

“The gel,” he explains, slicking his fingers up and running it through his hair. “I was thinking I’d just go for the fringe back-”

“No,” Victor has a  _ vision, _ and it's not with Yuuri having his hair styled for convenience. “No, wrong. We don't style hair for comfort. We style to give an impression.”

“So what do you want?”

Victor puts some gel on his hands and runs his fingers through his hair. He slicks the sides back more, leaving the top a little more up. He pulls a few strands of hair loose, and grins at his handiwork. 

“Once you start skating, you'll work up a nice red flush,” Victor tells him as he rinses his hands. 

“I look like I’ve sex hair,” complains Yuuri. 

“That's the point,” Victor tsks at him. “You're  _ Eros _ , Yuuri. Take the audience by storm.” Just standing in the bathroom in Victor’s old costume and with his sex hair, a small blush on Yuuri’s face, threatens to have him break down. “You have what it takes,” Victor mutters, his hands stretching out to hold Yuuri’s face. One hand trails downwards and slowly undoes the zipper at the back, watching it fall off him slowly, held up only when Yuuri raises his arms out at his sides.

“What are you doing?”

“You have eros, Yuuri, it’s painfully obvious,” he says, with the utmost conviction. “You could make anyone fall for you in a second.”

“But I’m plain,” Yuuri blinks at him owlishly. “I’m an ordinary Japanese-”

“You are not plain!” Victor’s voice might’ve rose too high, because Yuuri jumps. “Is that the reason why you haven’t been excelling? Because you think you’re not beautiful enough to be on the ice?”

“Chris-”

“Chris is a work-of-art. Yurio is a masterpiece,” states Victor, his gestures getting more emphatic with each word. He backs Yuuri up against the tiled wall. “I am a legend. But you-” he struggles to find the words in English. “To me, you are  _ nezhny _ , dear Yuuri.”

“What does that mean?” Yuuri fidgets beneath him, his voice hollow and sad. 

“I cannot translate it. There is no word in English,” he says, his eyes soft. “At the very core, it means something that may look crude at first sight, but once you understand it, it is the softest, tenderest thing you know. You may be the average Japanese man Yuuri, but in this costume and in my eyes, you are the very best. I never want you to forget that.”

Yuuri sniffles and tucks his face into the crook of Victor’s neck.

“You are loved,” Victor winds his arms around his waist.  _ By no one more so than me _ . “Unconditionally, by so many people. Your sister and your parents, your fans- Yuko and her daughters,” he pulls back to look at him seriously. “Take that love with you and bring it onto the ice, Yuuri.”

“You really think I can?”

“I know you can,  _ katsudon _ .”

* * *

Victor’s love, not that he’s being Victor and not the playboy he dons for the media, is all-encompassing and warm. Yuuri’s trying to land his quad Salchow, but it’s hard as balls and he’s falling at every turn. He should’ve known, before he tried, that he was weak and foolish and useless-

“Yuuri,” Victor skates over to him with a smile. His mouth is heart-shaped. He holds out a hand and pulls Yuuri up in a fluid, strong motion. “I’ve been learning how to say it in Japanese for you. I could go,  _ davai _ ! But I think, for you, I’ll make an exception.”

Yuuri stares at him. The weight of his defeats crush him. “Say what?”

“Yuuri,  _ ganbatte _ !” Victor gives him a huge, goofy smile and two thumbs up. Yuuri sucks in a breath and has to turn away from him, his face crumpling. Victor’s accent is still present, he fails to hit the tone at the end of the word- you’re supposed to go up with your voice, but he goes down. But the sentiment- oh, the sentiment could be felt a mile away.  _ Ganbatte _ . 

“No, Victor, you can’t play dirty like that,” Yuuri rubs his arm across his eyes and turns back to him, a shaky smile gracing red eyes. “You can’t learn my language and use it on me when I’m weakest.”

“Of course that’s when I’ll use it,” Victor skates over to him and holds him tightly by the shoulders. “Also when I’m ordering food. But mostly for cheering you on, Yuuri! I know how it feels to have someone address you in your native tongue when you feel far away. So  _ davai, ganbatte _ , keep going Yuuri! You’ll land that jump and many more, I promise you.”

The way Victor coaches is completely different from Celestino. While he can be cruel and merciless, he is always soft in his mannerisms, always ready with a smile and something unexpected to whisk him away. Here is a man who looks and feels like ice, hard and unforgiving, a marble, porcelain, stone statue, always cold to the touch, yet he is the kindest and warmest man Yuuri has ever seen. He falls into his arms and says, “I’ll land the jump for you one day.”

Victor smiles against his neck. “Of course you will. Now again! If you don’t nail it within the next two tries, we’re going back to your step sequence.”

Yuuri tries again, and again, and then he ignores Victor’s request to move onto the step sequence and goes again. This time, exhausted and mentally drained, he doesn’t even make a double, and skids hard along the ice.

“Yuuri! What did I tell you?” Victor demands, anger on his lips. Yuuri can’t take it anymore. 

“Victor!” he cries, and holds out his arms. His entire body aches. He feels like he’s been through a shredder. “Victor, I don’t deserve you.”

“Nonsense,” Victor responds willingly to his embrace, running his hands through Yuuri’s hair. “Enough about whether or not you deserve my help. This I give willingly, and freely, and I will not have it belittled by the likes of a  _ katsudon _ ,” he pulls back and presses his forehead against Yuuri’s. “I will see you on the podium, Yuuri. Quads or no quads.”

Yuuri draws in a shaking breath. “How can you be so sure?”

“Because you’re beautiful, Katsuki Yuuri. One day, everyone will see it too.”

* * *

 

_ Maybe _ , Yuuri thinks one night as they lie tangled together on Victor’s bed,  _ we touch too much for student and coach.  _

He’s never been a very touchy person, always been reserved, quiet, preferring to watch than to interfere. It is a value Phichit helped lessen, but not eradicate. Never before has Yuuri ever been this intimate with another person, and it’s with his own idol, his own marble statue. Turning away from the movie, he tucks his face into Victor’s warm chest and thinks about his future. What would he do after the season is over?

“I pushed you hard today,” Victor pats his head softly, as if he were Macachin. “You are alright, yes?”

Yuuri doesn’t want to think of his future. He wants to live in the moment, right now, with his sore feet and aching thighs and Victor all pressed up against him.

“I’m okay,” he murmurs. “Nothing I can’t handle.”

“Good, good! Tomorrow, we go again,” Victor smiles sleepily at him. “You are resilient! It is prerequisite of figure skaters. I am proud of you.”

Yuuri’s hands fist themselves in Victor’s shirt, unused to such sincere praises. He says, “when this is all over, how about you and I- we just take a break and go sightseeing.”

“Where?"

“Anywhere,” Yuuri looks up at the slant of his jaw. “Japan. I’ll take you to Disneyland, and Osaka, Tokyo and Hokkaido. I’ll bring you to cafés you think wouldn’t be good. I’ll teach you Japanese. We can buy milk bread.”

Victor reaches out his hands again for those strings that bind him together. He tugs on them. “Only if I can take you to Russia, da? We can see the Kremlin. Make fun of Putin. I’ll show you my apartment. I’ll teach you the many different words we have for hangovers. You can experience them all.”

“ _ Hai _ ,” Yuuri whispers. He falls asleep on Victor’s bed and he wakes up in his own.

* * *

It’s in the middle of skating that Yuuri realises he’s in love, and he nearly falls. It’s a realisation that has come to him slowly, so slowly it felt more like the encroach of the tide rather than something concrete.

It was as though it took getting his feet wet to realise how deep this emotion ran — and then he was turning, following his routine through muscle memory, but his head was turning faster than his body so he could see, for those brief milliseconds, the flash of Victor’s proud face, a bright light against the crowd. 

His approval is not something Yuuri craves, nor is it something that he  _ needs,  _ not anymore. There was a time when his entire self-worth was judged based on how often Victor had praised him that day, but now it is based on how well he can perform to his own standards, not the standards of someone else. He feels like he’s grown up, and is in that moment so immensely proud of himself he can’t help but let his face crumple as he slips into a quad. It doesn’t even matter if he wins gold or not. He feels like he’s won just by this profound realisation, borne of months of practice and doubt and tears — that he’s good enough the way he is, that he’s powerful the way he is, that there is beauty in his failure. 

When he comes off the ice, legs shaking, breathless, the way Victor holds his shoulders is different, as though he knows what Yuuri has accepted, those minutes on the ice. His smile is intensely fond. 

“Yuuri,” he says, and draws him into a hug so tight Yuuri can’t breathe. “I would tell you, _ you have come far, _ but I think you already know.”

Yuuri clutches onto his sleeve and says nothing.

* * *

 

It is after Yuuri has won silver and they’re in the lift up to their hotel that Yuuri takes a deep breath and knocks his head against the lift wall. Victor looks at him, concerned, but otherwise quiet. 

He looks down at his hands, where he can see a golden band glittering peacefully on his hands. What was this for? Marriage? They weren’t even dating yet, he thinks rather scornfully, but still twists the ring like it’s something important. 

He turns to Victor in a rush. “I won silver,” he states.

Victor nods, his smile affectionate. “Your comeback was absolutely spectacular,” he replies. “It’s not gold, but it’s an achievement worth celebrating.”

Yuuri bites his lip, wrings his hands together, then says, “Victor — I love you.” 

Victor startles. His ice eyes open wide, and a red blush settles high on his cheekbones. He smiles. Victor smiles a lot now. It’s always genuine. Yuuri reaches out for his face and holds his carefully sculpted features in the palm of his hand. Turning his head, Victor presses a kiss to the inside of Yuuri’s wrist. 

“I loved you from the start, dear Yuuri,” his voice is soft, nearly hidden by the elevator music that plays in the background. “I loved you when I met you.” 

Yuuri pulls his hand away. “You had no reason to.” 

“You were everything you are now,” Victor insists. He takes a step forward. “You just didn’t see it. But  _ I  _ saw it, and I loved it. That has been my purpose, Yuuri. I am the —-,” he loses the words, can’t steer the English language to suit his needs. For once, his eloquence betrays him. “Navigator,” he continues. “Navigator on a ship you captained.” 

Yuuri laughs; it’s watery and pale in the light. He feels emboldened — high off adrenaline, high off saying the words he’s wanted to say for a very, very long time. He leans forward onto his tiptoes and presses a kiss to Victor’s forehead, a soft smile on his face. 

Victor closes his eyes. 

“You’ve grown up too,” Yuuri tells him. “You didn’t know what you skated for. I think you know now,” Yuuri takes his hand and squeezes it. “We’ve both come very far.” 

Victor nods, his eyes soft, like water, not ice. “I will skate for myself,” he whispers. “The way you realised — you didn’t skate for  _ me. _ ” 

The elevator doors ding open, and Yuuri steps out. So this is what love is, then — slowly, ever so slowly, like winds shaping mountains and water chipping rock, being that comfortable with someone that you realise, in ways you can’t even see till you step back months later, that you’ve changed each other, built each other, become foundations and pillars and all sorts of things because you were  _ in love _ and you wanted to — that you were foils of each other and now you’re two separate people but all the better for having met. 

Yuuri’s throat tightens. He turns to look behind at Victor, who holds out his hand, and Yuuri without much thinking takes it. 

“Let’s go,” Victor says, and leads him down the corridor. As Yuuri looks at his strong back and heavy slant of his shoulders, a sudden thought crosses his mind, and with that, he smiles. His heart settles, and this tumultuous sea he feels has always been raging inside smooths over to a gentle crash on a soft beach. 

In his mind’s eye, Victor is there. He runs into the waves and yells and looks at Yuuri with such love it’s hard to keep looking at him like that. The beach is new; has never been there before, but Yuuri comes out of the water and steps foot onto the sand and throws his arms wide open. Victor picks him up and turns him around and they all fall into a heap of tangled limbs on the sand, laughing. He’s here, isn’t he? He’s finally here. 

**Author's Note:**

> please leave a comment or a kudos if you enjoyed this thank you !


End file.
